Her older sister, Heather, was also waiting to greet her. It’s kind of her job to be there, actually. Heather, 24, is the assistant coach for the Norwell High School ski team.

It’s moments like those that Gretchen appreciates the most, never taking advantage of time spent with and around her family. Just over a year and a half ago, the Webbs’ lives changed forever, and three months after that, the family was hit with more devastating news. Gretchen grew up a lot quicker than she expected, facing adversity that she described as: “something I’ve never seen happen to a family within three months.”

Heather Webb had just graduated college and was about to enter the real world.

“She had a dream job,” Gretchen said.

She was about to start work at the prestigious PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), but a trip to the doctor’s office took an unexpected turn. She had a mole removed, but further tests indicated that Heather had stage 3 melanoma.

“I remember when my mom told me,” Gretchen said. “I had no idea what it really meant. I had heard of skin cancer, but I thought it was just something you could pluck off and that was it. Soon enough, I found out that wasn’t the case and that stage 3 was very serious.”

Heather had surgery to remove lymph nodes. She then spent five days a week getting doses of interferon, a powerful drug used to treat melanoma, lymphomas, and leukemia. Through it all, Gretchen, the youngest of Greg and Amy Webb’s three children, was there for her sister, the sister she always looked up to.

“Me and my sister have always been close,” Gretchen said. “Now, I feel like we can to go each other for anything. She’s doing much better now.”

With Heather on the road to recovery, Gretchen entered her junior year of high school. It was the fall of 2012. In three months, she’d start skiing for the Clippers for the third year in a row, looking to make it to the state finals for the third straight winter. But her life, her family’s life, was hit with another unexpected blow. Her mother, Amy, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

“It was pretty unbelievable,” Gretchen said, still reeling from her sister’s diagnosis. “It was a lot to take as a kid.”

The diagnosis came on Halloween. Gretchen decided to go to school the next day, keeping the news to herself, which she soon realized wasn’t easy.

“I hadn’t told my friends the night I found out. The next day in school, I was in second period study with a bunch of friends,” Gretchen said. “I could feel a tear coming down my face, so I went to the bathroom.”

One of her friends followed, and Gretchen soon told them about her mother. Her friends immediately became her greatest support group outside of her own home.

Despite the adversity, Gretchen carried on with her schoolwork, kept up her grades, and soon started her junior year of skiing. It was the best year she had. She finished sixth in the league and reached the state finals for a third straight year. Shortly after ski season was over, her mother had a transplant and was in isolation in the hospital. The family had to wear gloves and masks when they visited. Gretchen often brought her homework to the hospital so she wouldn’t fall behind in school.

A soccer player as a freshmen at Norwell High, and then a member of the lacrosse team her freshman and sophomore years, Gretchen opted to not play lacrosse her junior year, so she could spend more time with her family and help her mother when she returned home after the transplant. It also gave Gretchen time to process everything that had gone on in the past year.

“I was so young to go through all this,” she said. “Me and my dad would sit on the back deck and talk about it. My dad is my rock.”

Gretchen and her father still lean on each other for support, along with Gretchen’s older brother, Curtis, an undergrad at the University of New Hampshire.

“My brother was at college, so it was hard to see how he was dealing with it,” Gretchen said, adding that she, Curtis, and their father go skiing together as an outlet and to talk to each other outside away from home. “We go to Maine and ski, and it’s nice for us. We can talk about it because sometimes we don’t know what to say to them (Amy and Heather).”

Gretchen said her sister and mother are doing well. Amy walks three miles a day and has very few restrictions. She can’t ski because her bones are too fragile if she fell. Gretchen’s senior ski season recently ended, and she finished seventh in the league. Her parents were there to see her ski this season.

In a couple months, Gretchen will graduate from Norwell High School, and in the fall hopes to either join her brother at UNH or go to Roger Williams University.

“It’s different. We have different lives than most people do,” Gretchen said. “We definitely have become a lot closer and know when something bad happens, we are there for each other.”